Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad
KOTA KINABALU: Amending the Federal Constitution to ensure the restoration of Sabah and Sarawak rights as enshrined in the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) requires a two-third majority in parliament.
The task at hand now is to find out a way to get the two-third majority, said Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Speaking to the media after a breakfast meeting with the state cabinet and leaders here yesterday, Dr Mahathir who was asked on how long the study on MA63 would take, replied, “at the moment we do not have the two-third majority if we need to change the Constitution.
“So we have to figure out how we can achieve two-third majority but in the mean time we will study what things have to be repealed and substituted with new provisions in the Constitution,” he said.
But there will also be some laws which need to be looked into, he added.
The opposition, he opined, may say that they support the idea of restoring the rights of Sabah and Sarawak but do the opposite when in Parliament.
“Like recently the law on fake news, we thought they would support us but you know they went to senate where we don’t have a majority, so we lost,” he said.
To the question if there is a time frame of how long the review will take, the Prime Minister said it depends on the people working (and) upon the push by Sabah and Sarawak.
Dr Mahathir also said the discussion on the restoration of Sabah and Sarawak’s status as equal partners announced on Sunday night could start immediately, but approval would take time.
To the question other than restoring Sabah and Sarawak’s status as equal partners were there any other rights the Federal Government is looking at to return to Sabah, Dr Mahathir replied, “there are certain things which are decided in Kuala Lumpur by people who are not actually familiar with the conditions in Sabah and Sarawak.
“We have to address that issue either we have more Sabahans and Sarawakians working in the Peninsular in the federal government or else we will need to have some of the decision making transferred to Sabah and Sarawak.”
Dr Mahathir had in his speech at the national level Malaysia Day celebration here on Sunday night said that the Pakatan Harapan government would restore the status of Sabah and Sarawak as partners in the Federation of Malaysia.
According to him, the restoration of Sabah and Sarawak’s status was part of the process to be implemented when the study on the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) was completed.
“The restoration of the status of Sabah and Sarawak as enshrined in MA63 will provide us a solid foundation to improve the relationship of the three regions,” he said.